I have been trying to measure food intake of mice and I have been having difficulties. I am using a powdered diet and have been feeding pairs of mice in small glass bowls; however, after each day the bowls are contaminated with urine and faeces, and a significant amount o food has been spilt, which does not allow me to accurately measure the previous days food intake. I have placed the mice in CLAMS cages, which can measure the food removed; however, again a lot of food is spilt and mixed with urine and faeces - additionally I am not sure if the stressful environment of the CLAMS cages would give a true value of a mouse's food intake under normal conditions. I do not have access to metabolic cages. Has anybody encountered such problems and/or have suggestions on how I could overcome such problems? Thanks!
Hi,
we often used powdered High-fed diet for our mice, to measure foodintake, and use avoiding that the mice spill or impurify the food, we use metal feeder shields, see picture below. For B6N, B6J or C3H we used one with the small hole, for lager mice like NZO, TallyHO or older db/db we use the with the larger hole. For us it woks quiete nice. (see attachment)
bye
Hey Schultheiß,
Could you provide me with a website link to purchase those feeders? Thank you.
Could you dilute the food in water? and just measure how much the drink?